Chapter 22 Wrecker
WRECKER
I didn’t sleep.
Didn’t eat.
Didn’t sit long enough for my body to register hunger or exhaustion.
I paced.
Back and forth across the war room, boots striking concrete in a steady, relentless rhythm that was the only thing keeping me anchored.
Every step echoed too loud in the cavernous space, the sound bouncing off the walls and coming back wrong.
The room was lit low, screens casting a cold blue glow across the concrete, maps and satellite feeds layered over one another until the world looked like nothing but grids and coordinates and red circles that meant possible locations.
Every red circle felt like a lie until proven otherwise.
Brutus and Ghost worked shoulder to shoulder at the long table, fingers flying, voices clipped and quiet.
Brutus leaned in close to the screens, massive arms braced on either side like he might physically hold the data still long enough to force it to tell the truth.
Ghost barely blinked, eyes flicking from one feed to another, mask hiding everything but the tension in his posture.
Ranger stood near the window with his radio pressed to his ear, listening for things none of us could hear, jaw tight every time static crackled back instead of information.
Cap moved constantly. Phone in one hand, tablet in the other, jaw locked tight every time a call ended without answers. He looked like a man holding the line together through sheer force of will, like if he stopped moving even for a second the whole place would collapse in on itself.
The compound felt wrong. Too quiet. Too tense. Like everything was coiled and waiting for the snap.
My eyes kept drifting to the empty chair at the table.
Scout’s chair.
The absence of him sat heavy in my chest, an ache I hadn’t been able to shake since the night he vanished.
I kept thinking about the way he laughed too loud, the way he never shut up when he was nervous, the way he’d looked at Amanda like she was something fragile but stubborn enough to survive anything.
If he was still alive, he’d be fighting. I knew that. And if he wasn’t—
I cut that thought off hard.
I kept seeing Amanda the night I left. Barefoot on the concrete floor of my room, wrapped in my arms like she already knew she’d need that memory later. I kept hearing her voice, soft and shaky when she whispered, Come back.
Every second that passed felt like I was breaking that promise.
“She’s not in the city,” Ghost said finally, breaking the silence. His eyes didn’t leave the screen. “No trace on urban cams. No abandoned vehicles. Nothing dumped in the grid.”
“So they went rural,” Brutus replied. “Far enough to stall signal. Close enough to watch us scramble.”
Cap stopped pacing and turned back toward the table. “Roanoke and Richmond traffic logs are cross-checked. Ghost, pull the last thirty-six hours of satellite heat signatures. Anything warm in an unoccupied zone, we hit.”
I crossed the room and planted my hands on the table hard enough to make the screens rattle. “Where would you hide if you wanted to go dark fast?”
Ghost didn’t look up. “Abandoned farmland. Storage depots. Construction shells. Warehouses waiting on permits. Places meant to be temporary.”
Temporary.
That word sank like a knife, twisting deep in my gut. Temporary meant transit. It meant holding people just long enough to move them again.
“We’ve got five possibles,” Brutus added. “All off-grid. All within ten miles of the last confirmed sighting.”
Cap looked at me then. Really looked at me. “We don’t rush blind.”
My jaw tightened. Everything in me wanted to argue, to demand we move now, logic be damned. I could feel the rage climbing, hot and ugly, begging for an outlet. Instead, I forced myself to nod, forced the words out through clenched teeth.
“Then we move smart,” I said. “But we move.”
Cap held my gaze another second, then nodded once. “Suit up.”
That was all I needed.
No bikes tonight.
This wasn’t Iron Battalion rolling loud. This wasn’t about intimidation or territory. This was a retrieval. Quiet. Controlled. Lethal if it came to that.
I climbed into the back of the van, gear already strapped down, rifle secure across my chest. Ghost took the passenger seat, Brutus slid behind the wheel, and Cap climbed in beside me, tapping notes into his tablet like he wasn’t about to authorize hell.
The engine rumbled low as we rolled out of the garage, tires crunching over gravel before hitting pavement. The compound disappeared behind us, swallowed by the dark.
Fifteen minutes. Maybe less.
I counted them anyway.
One mile.
One turn.
One breath.
I sat still, body calm in that way it always got when something inside me had already snapped into place. My hands didn’t shake. My pulse stayed steady. The calm scared me more than the rage. Calm meant I’d already decided how far I was willing to go.
Underneath it all, there was fire.
Amanda’s face kept flashing behind my eyes. The way she smiled when she forgot to be scared. The sound of her laugh when it surprised her. The way she said my name like it mattered. The weight of her in my arms after our first night, fragile and fierce all at once.
They took all of that.
They were going to pay.
“Eyes up,” Cap murmured. “Ghost, drone goes up at the tree line.”
Ghost nodded, already pulling the controls from his bag.
The warehouse loomed ahead, concrete and rust against the open field. One flickering light above the loading dock blinked like it was about to die. A single guard leaned against a crate near the side door, phone glowing in his hand, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers.
He never saw me.
I reached him in three steps. One hand clamped over his mouth, the other driving the knife home. His body went slack before he could react. Brutus caught him and dragged him into the shadows without a sound.
Cap gave a single nod.
Brutus popped the latch with barely a click, and we slid inside.
The air hit me immediately. Damp concrete. Metal. Something sour underneath it all that made my stomach twist. This place had seen things it wasn’t meant to hold.
“Two corridors,” Ghost whispered. “Multiple interior rooms.”
“I’ll take left,” I said, already moving.
The first room was empty. Too empty. Restraints bolted to the wall at uneven heights. Scuffed concrete where feet had kicked and scraped. Dark stains soaked into the floor, old enough to have dried but not old enough to fade. Anger bubbled in my chest as I stepped over them.
The second room had been cleared in a hurry. Food wrappers, a tipped chair, a discarded jacket that looked too small to belong to any of the men we’d seen. Drag marks led toward the back exit, deep grooves carved into the concrete.
My gut twisted.
This wasn’t where they planned to keep anyone.
It was a pass-through.
Ghost’s voice crackled softly in my ear. “Wrecker. Found something.”
I doubled back just long enough to see what he was pointing at. A burner phone smashed against the wall, casing cracked but not destroyed. Ghost knelt, carefully lifting it with gloved fingers.
“It’s Scout’s model,” he said quietly. “Same batch.”
My vision tunneled.
“Can you pull anything?” Cap asked.
Ghost nodded. “SIM’s gone. But there’s a partial number burned into the casing. Same prefix Scout used.”
Scout had been here.
Alive long enough to carry a phone.
Alive long enough for them to take it from him.
I forced myself forward before the rage could root me to the floor.
I took the stairs down two at a time. Concrete under my boots. Cracked walls closing in tighter the farther I descended. The air grew colder, heavier, like the building itself was holding its breath.
Halfway down, I heard it.
A cry. Female. Sharp and terrified.
Not Amanda.
I ran anyway.
The door at the bottom was half-hinged. I slammed into it, sending it crashing inward.
Chaos.
Two girls. One crumpled on the floor, clutching her arm, blood soaking through her sleeve. Fear radiated off her in waves, eyes glassy and unfocused. The other was standing.
Amanda.
Blood smeared across her shirt. Hair wild. Eyes burning with a fury I’d never seen before.
A man twice her size had her pinned against the wall, forearm jammed across her chest.
She wasn’t screaming.
She wasn’t begging.
She was fighting.
A shard of metal flashed in her hand, slashing across his cheek as he tried to overpower her. Her arm shook with exhaustion, breath coming in sharp, ragged pulls, but she didn’t stop. Didn’t give him an inch.
For one terrifying second, I thought I was too late.
Then her eyes locked on mine.
Recognition flared there.
She didn’t freeze.
She struck again.
I moved.
My knife sank into the bastard’s side. He howled, but I was already ripping him off her, slamming him into the floor. Over and over until his body went slack beneath me, until the rage had somewhere to go.
Until he stopped moving.
The room went quiet except for Amanda’s gasping breaths and the pounding of my own heart.
“Amanda,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of her.
She blinked up at me like she wasn’t sure I was real. Her hands shook violently, mouth opening and closing without sound, shock finally crashing in now that the fight was over.
“I’ve got you,” I said, pulling her into my chest. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Her fingers locked into my vest like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Her whole body trembled as she pressed her face into my shoulder.
“I knew you’d come,” she whispered.
My throat burned.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers. “I should’ve never left you.”
“But you came back.”
That was all that mattered.
The rest of the fight blurred into noise. Gunfire echoing down corridors. Shouts. Brutus yelling clear. Ghost dragging someone by the collar past the doorway.
Amanda sagged against me, her strength finally giving out now that she didn’t need it anymore.
“The girl,” she whispered. “Hailey. She’s hurt.”
Ranger was already there, med kit open, voice calm and steady as he worked. “She’s alive,” he said gently. “Bleeding, but stable.”
Amanda nodded, eyes glassy but alert, like she was cataloging everything even through the haze.
Ghost appeared in the doorway, his posture tight. “Cap. You need to see this.”
Another room. More restraints. Fresh drag marks. A clipboard lying discarded on a table, pages fluttering slightly in the draft.
Cap picked it up, flipping through quickly. His jaw tightened.
“Names,” he said. “Codes. Dates.”
Ghost leaned over his shoulder. “Scout’s date is on here. Two days ago.”
My blood went cold.
“This wasn’t the destination,” Ghost said quietly. “They moved people through here.”
“How recently?” Cap asked.
Ranger crouched, examining the floor. “Hours. Maybe less.”
Scout had been here.
And then he’d been taken somewhere else.
We got out fast.
Cold night air hit Amanda and she hissed softly, fingers tightening in my jacket. I pulled her closer, keeping my arm locked around her waist, grounding her with every step.
The van waited two blocks down.
Ariel jumped out as soon as the doors opened, running straight to Amanda. “Oh my god.”
“I’m okay,” Amanda said, though her voice shook.
I lifted her into the back, wrapped a blanket around her, and climbed in beside her. Her hand found mine immediately, fingers threading through like she was afraid I might disappear again.
I didn’t let go.
Cap’s voice came through my comm. “Bring her home.”
I looked down at Amanda, her head resting against my shoulder, eyes finally closing as exhaustion claimed her.
“I am,” I said.
And this time, I meant it.